I feel art plays a pretty significant role in my life. I know it may sound cliché but for me art is something that kind of takes me away from all of the problems that I have to deal with. It allows me to get away but also not to completely forget. Which probably sounds confusing to you but it makes sense to me. Art makes people go beyond clichés and allows people to expand their mind and kind of think out of the box. Literal media keeps you inside that box while art usually doesn’t.
Here are some examples of what I feel is art:
This is called lowrider art. The reason why I feel lowrider art is real art is because it has a special place in my heart. I connect to this kind of art because it’s also referred to as Chicano art and no Chicano art isn’t always on lowriders. (I could only find lowrider art on yahoo.) I am a Chicana so I identify with this type of art. For others this may not come anywhere near their definition of art but for me lowrider/Chicano art is art because of the style, the colors, the blending, it has a glow to it. For me this type of art is beautiful, I mean not all of the drawings are supposed to be considered beautiful but for me it is J. Just for the simple fact of the way it’s drawn. That has to do with what I feel is art.
Here is an example of what I feel iSN’t art:
I don’t feel this drawing is art. I’d never consider this as art. I don’t see how in any way this could be art. It’s a drawing by someone who’s apparently confused BUT I don’t see this as art. And it’s not because it’s drawn on binder paper that makes me consider this not art. Art can be drawn on binder paper, you don’t need anything fancy to draw on so it could be considered art. It’s also not the fact that it’s just one color…red either. It’s just I can’t really put my finger on it but it’s probably the way it’s drawn. I don’t think it it’s drawn very nice. It almost kind of bothers me looking at it. The eye is all weird. I don’t know but if I would see this on a big, fancy museum I would still not consider it art even if it was in a museum. This just doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t get anything out of it. I don’t and can’t connect to it and I don’t know if I really want to. Harsh but true.
I’m not trying to say art can’t be abstract. Art can be abstract and in most cases usually is and that’s something nice about art. That it doesn’t always have to be so literal. Sometimes you have to really stop and just think for a second or a minute or two. Art should be metaphoric. But art can also be simple. For me Art just has to be something I can connect to. Something that isn’t like an eyesore though. I mean art can be about death and it doesn’t have to be beautiful or anything it can look destructive or something like that but I feel art has to just have some skill to it. Like it has to be drawn very well, or at least have good blending of color, something of that sort.
Before this project I felt like art could be just about anything, it just depended on the person. Now I’ve realized that for ME art isn’t anything and everything. What I consider art has to directly connect to ME and not everything directly or even a just a little bit connects to me. Like not all big fancy museum art connects to me or has to do anything with me. So I don’t consider that art.
When I started to think seriously about what I think is art I though about Chicano art. It’s a part of my culture it’s a part of me so I feel this is art. Then I just kind of compared other images to the images I thought were 100% art and realized kind of a pattern on what I thought was art and what wasn’t.
Art: lowrider arte, Chicano art. Can be simple, complicated, metaphorical, abstract, creative, destructive, beautiful. But No eyesores puhleez!
Not Art: Not drawn very well. No connection to me.
